Journal of Economic Literature
ISSN 0022-0515 (Print) | ISSN 2328-8175 (Online)
A Review of Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti's Love, Money and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids
Journal of Economic Literature
(pp. 1001–22)
Abstract
As Generation X's (born in the 1960s and 1970s) child bearing years draw to a close, its parenting practices are due for assessment, the topic of the book under review. The book organizes its discussion around Diana Baumrind's three parenting styles: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. It chronicles the drift toward the two latter and argues that income inequality determines which one of the two will be popular. When inequality is low, less is at stake and the parenting style can be more relaxed. By contrast, high inequality pushes parents toward the achievement-oriented authoritative style. More generally, the book argues, cultural differences in parenting styles can be understood as the outcome of altruistic parents' efforts to prepare their children for adulthood, a useful perspective when parental rights are limited, long the case in the West.Citation
Edlund, Lena. 2021. "A Review of Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti's Love, Money and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids." Journal of Economic Literature 59 (3): 1001–22. DOI: 10.1257/jel.20201559Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D13 Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation
- D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- I20 Education and Research Institutions: General
- J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination